Exhibits

Alice Rigney: Food in Art.

Food in Art: An Exhibition of Painting by Alice Rigney @ the Tenafly Public Library

A lifelong Tenafly resident, Alice Rigney developed an interest in food through visits to the showroom and warehouse her father’s New York City specialty foods importing business and through a post college job working at Bellows Gourmets’ Bazaar in New York. Her work introduced her to some of the leading chefs and gourmets of the time and included time discussing herbs and spices on CBS radio. Rigney gained knowledge of wine working as a hostess for the Wine and Food Society of New York.

Rigney worked as an illustrator with a nationally known men’s fashion artist and later ran her own graphic studio producing mail-order catalogs, programs, logos and ads. Rigney began designing and painting items for the gift and home furnishings markets, eventually incorporating her business under the name The Stone House Studio. Her hand- painted products were sold to the wholesale trade both nationally and around the world. Rigney received the Best Product Award during the 2001 New York Home Textiles Show. In addition to the wholesale business, The Stone House Studio also ran a retail store in Cresskill for twelve years and offered catered dinners, parties and classes.

Mrs. Rigney has donated her time to raise funds for the restoration of the Tenafly Railroad Station, and the rebuilding of the historic bandstand in Tenafly’s Huyler Park. Rigney assisted with the survey of the Theodore Roosevelt Monument for the Save our Sculptures program and was the designer of the Tenafly Bicentennial logo and the Second Day Cancellation of the Glenn Miller postage stamp for the United States Postal Service. In 2001 the THS Class of 1946 presented her trompe l’oeil mural My Tenafly Bookcase, to the Tenafly Public Library for permanent display.

Rigney was honored as Tenafly Woman of the Year by the Chamber of Commerce and twice received the Bergen County Volunteer of the Year award. She was the 2012 Grand Marshall of the Tenafly Memorial Day Parade and received the Founders Award for Conservation from the Tenafly Nature Center in 2016. A charter member of the Tenafly Historic Preservation Commission, Rigney is a member of the National Trust for Historic Preservation and Preservation New Jersey. Since 2007Rigney has served as the Tenafly Borough Historian.

Since retiring from her business, Alice Rigney has studied at the Art Students League and Drawing the Masters at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She has exhibited her work at the Tenafly Public Library, the Shelburne Museum in Vermont, the Closter Public Library and the Belskie Museum of Art in Closter.

With this exhibit two of Rigney’s lifelong interests have come together and she shares that “Doing this exhibit has been one of the most pleasurable experiences of my life. I only hope that the viewer will find half the joy in seeing this show as I did in creating it.”

Food in Art: An Exhibition of Painting will be on exhibit during the months of May and June 2016 at the Tenafly Public Library.